Before turning to the problems of housing supply in Windsor, Slough and Maidenhead as mentioned in my last blog, new public comments by Sir Keir Starmer and from Labour’s shadow housing and planning minister, Matthew Pennycock, need context, if the dangers of housing stasis by a Labour government are to be avoided.
Sir Keir says “ Very often the objections that people have to housebuilding on the green belt are valid because the control by landowners and developers means that the houses are proposed in areas where it’s quite obvious that there is going to be a local concern. Give local authorities, local areas more power to decide where it will be and you alleviate that problem. So it’s not as binary or straightforward as ‘green belt,not green belt’. It’s how you direct where the housing will be”.
He is on the lines, hurrah! But missing one big threat. Existing land owners, and speculators holding options on key building sites will not co-operate in the short term, if their locally generated, commercially justified expectations of winning the housing lottery is blocked. What is the answer? Locally future housing land supply must be seen and managed in two parts. Short term, at least up to the end of the prevailing local plan; and long term, the period one and two generations after the current local plan ends. There is in addition a key financial point here, which together with co-operation and non-co-operation matters a lot. Provided that the phase two housing land supply policy is least 10 and better 20 years ahead the hope value or additional value created by the grant of planning consent will be very low or nil. Meaning if the land concerned is eventually selected for building, the escalation in value, 100-500 times current use value reverts back to the local community who created this surplus.
Politicians in a hurry for lots of new homes need not worry. The phase two timetable seems far away. It is, but in the meantime provided locally there is cross-party, cross-border based policy for this dual-phase approach, with no prospect of local U-turns by local groups, the result will be those who own or control land expected to be released for housing within phase one, during the existing local plan period will be faced with the threat of a wholly new, superior quality of housing supply when phase two starts. What will they do now? They will accelerate their own delivery programmes because they know their land-lottery based party will be coming to an end.
Unfortunately there is another error in Labour’s approach. Matthew Pennycook says “We think there is a smarter way of releasing greenbelt land where is necessary to do so- one that will develop more low-quality, brownfield land within the greenbelt to meet local housing need while protecting and enhancing high-quality greenbelt land for public benefit. ….the Tories are already building on the greenbelt. The problem is that they have allowed a free-for-all that sees lots of high quality, nature-rich greenfield land haphazardly released for speculative development that does’nt meet local need”.
This sort of denial of market reality, dressed as an environmental criticism will unnecessarily alienate voters from supporting Labour at the election. They know it is rare for houses in new developments not to sell, despite their mediocre designs, tendency to have lists of snags, and in walking terms, be in remote locations, and for locals, be a generator of zero local pride! At least the land is being put to a high value use, even if the project ought to have been built in a location selected on sustainable, not haphazard principles. This approach is not smart thinking. It is the path to stasis.
Starmer promises to take on planning reform. That proclamation is welcome news. But first Labour must do a lot more thinking. They will win over the three key groups, local residents/conservationists, local land owners and local leaders across the political divide if it is plain their approach is driven by reality and empathy, not by ideology and dislike of the market. A wise first step could be, to reassure existing vested land interests in the short term (10+ years) there no plan to undermine their legitimate expectations. Doing so would clear the air. And might generate unexpected goodwill.
Ian Campbell
24 May 2023
